Thursday, December 08, 2016

For female student debtors in China, dirty deeds done dirt cheap...

The most sensational news in China this week, dubbed "Stupid-Girl.zip-Gate," is the 10-gigabyte file of nude photographs and videos of thousands of female Chinese university students that were leaked online and, as a result, shared across the world.

It was reported that the girls' explicit selfies, in which each of them was photographed holding their ID cards, were taken willingly and by themselves as collateral for monetary loans via online peer-to-peer lending platforms.

The money these girls borrowed ranged from 2,000 yuan ($290.74) to 6,000 yuan; the more money loaned, the more graphic the selfie needed to be. The platforms usually required the money to be paid back within one to four weeks at a weekly interest rate of 15 percent.

Once news of the X-rated loans made headlines, netizens debated who was more at fault. "Why are illegal loan businesses allowed to operate online? Such peer-to-peer lending platforms should be shut down," one Weibo user commented.

But most blamed the girls. "Why would any young woman ever agree to hand over masturbation videos to evil loan sharks?" a netizen lamented. Full story...